Global demand for drone aircraft is especially strong in Gulf Arab states worried about regional instability, industry executives said yesterday, as a big US manufacturer unveiled the first sale of an unarmed Predator to the Middle East.
Controversy over the legality of attacks by missile-firing drones will not dampen the volatile region’s enthusiasm for the technology, in part because export curbs mean most equipment sold will be for use only in reconnaissance, experts say.
Sello Ntsihlele, executive manager for UAVs at Denel Dynamics, a division of state-owned Denel, South Africa’s biggest maker of defence equipment, told Reuters this was “the best time” for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) sales. “Demand is growing fast in developing countries, in the Middle East, the Far East and Africa. The Gulf is critical in all this,” he said on the sidelines of the biennial International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX) in Abu Dhabi.
“I can’t be specific but all countries in the Arabian Gulf are talking to us,” he said, adding that Denel’s UAV sales had risen around 20% in the last four years, driven mostly by the Middle East.
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Read more: http://www.gulf-times.com/region/216/details/342708/drone-manufacturers-target-rising-gulf-arab-demand
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